One of the biggest issues facing higher priced housing markets as of late, has been the absolute lack of jumbo mortgage financing. The TARP, TALF (and BARF – Bank Asset Relief Fund) only address mortgages within the parameters of Fannie Mae, ie conventional and jumbo conventional financing. In Manhattan that’s about $729k and with an average sales price just under $1.6M, a lot of homeowners are having great difficulty in obtaining mortgages with more than a 50% LTV.

This Bank of America announcement is great news for this sector of the housing market and may spark other interest in the sector.

Kenneth R. Harney’s must-read WaPo column “The Nation’s Housing” covers this announcement this week in his article: A Big Boost for Buyers Seeking Jumbo Loans:

>Bank of America, the country’s largest mortgage lender, is rolling out a large program to finance jumbo loans between roughly $730,000 and $1.5 million, with fixed 30-year rates starting in the upper 5 percent range. The loans will be available through the bank’s retail network and also through its Countrywide Home Loans subsidiary. After April 27, Countrywide will be rebranded — shedding the name it has had since 1969 — and morph into Bank of America Home Loans. Bank of America acquired Countrywide, once one of the biggest subprime lenders, last year.

So Countrywide becomes Bank of America Home Loans.

Last week, Landsafe, the appraisal management company arm of Countrywide approached us to be approved as an appraiser. Their quality people have met with us many times but for some reason, the sales function didn’t allow our type of firm to connect because you had to rub elbows with loan reps at each of their offices. Crazy bad.

I believe that has all been changed or is being changed for the better.

However, although we are state certified and likely because of all their problems with appraisal quality, their efforts to right the wrongs effective screen out qualified appraisers. They wanted among other things:

* our social security numbers
* credit card numbers?
* driver’s license #’s
* date of birth
* consumer reports containing illness records and medical information

Seemed pretty aggressive to us. What about identity theft concerns?

The irony of this sort of scrutiny is pretty powerful given past practices. Hopefully once things begin to run more smoothly and one hand knows what the other is doing, they’ll reconsider trying to attract qualified appraisers. We’ll wait patiently.

Good grief.


3 Comments

  1. Rhonda Porter March 24, 2009 at 8:25 pm

    What facinating times. I’m just getting ready to leave for a Seattle Mortgage Banker’s dinner to hear Fannie Mae reps, appraisers and bankers discuss HVCC.

  2. Jonathan J. Miller March 24, 2009 at 9:28 pm

    I agree Rhonda – would love to get any feedback you can glom about HVCC (or as some appraisers call it “Havoc”) at your dinner.

  3. Richard Kurtz April 4, 2009 at 5:32 pm

    Thanks for the information. “Havoc” at dinner is just great. 😉

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